Nekeili's grip on the stone released, his fingers slipping free as his mind sank into a pit of starvation he could not escape. A violent tremor ran through him as he suddenly grabbed at his stomach and throat, his body convulsing while saliva dripped from his lips, soaking his chin. His breath came out ragged, uneven, barely holding together as he forced the words out.
"...no… please… no… hold yourself together, Nekeili…"
The plea sounded distant even to himself, like it was being dragged out from somewhere far away. Nekeili, in despair, felt a hunger like no other—not the kind born from an empty stomach, not the kind that came with survival. This was something deeper, something invasive, something that didn't belong to him, yet had rooted itself within him all the same.
Then, without warning, a wave of calm washed over him. It was sudden. Cold. Wrong. The panic dulled instantly, smoothed over by something unnatural as his thoughts slowed, dragged down into a heavy stillness. That calm did not soothe—it suppressed. It flattened everything, burying his fear beneath something hollow as darkness began to seep into his mind, spreading through every corner of his awareness until nothing resisted it anymore.
He came to an abrupt stop, and went silent.
Nekeili stood absolutely still, not a single breath escaping his lips as his posture straightened on its own, his body aligning unnaturally. His chest no longer rose or fell, his presence thinning into something empty, something distant. His eyes shifted, turning bloody as his pupils dilated, swallowing what remained of his gaze while a mix of green and red formed along the edges of his iris, slowly spreading inward.
His head tilted to the side in a slow, deliberate motion, his jaw slackening as saliva continued to drip from his lips. The blood emerald overtook his original brown eyes completely, the color replacing what he once was as his iris altered, permanently changed.
Nekeili was no longer conscious.
Then he ran.
His body launched forward with explosive force, no hesitation, no restraint, moving with everything it had as if driven by something far beyond instinct. He abused his skill without thought, Maddening Spatial Sacrifice activating again and again as space folded around him in short, violent bursts, snapping him forward in rapid succession. It wasn't controlled. It wasn't careful. It was instinctive, like breathing, like moving a limb.
What drove him did not question the strain, did not care for the consequences, only that he moved faster, that he closed the distance, that he reached the thing calling to him.
Each activation tore at him. The blood bargain surged through his body violently as the cost accumulated without pause, further corrupting and weakening whatever sanity remained. His bones creaked under the strain, then snapped in places, fractures forming mid-motion while muscles tore apart and reformed just as quickly under the pressure of his accelerated healing.
He didn't slow, didn't hesitate. Pain meant nothing.
His body was being destroyed and rebuilt in the same breath, over and over, each displacement forcing reality to accept him again as he tore through space in relentless bursts. The fractured plains blurred past him, reduced to streaks of broken terrain and shadow as he pushed forward beyond what his body should have been capable of.
And the closer he got—the faster he healed.
It wasn't gradual. It wasn't subtle. Something ahead of him was affecting him directly, his regeneration accelerating as if responding to its presence. Flesh reformed faster, fractures sealed almost instantly, muscle fibers reconnected before they could fully fail.
It didn't make sense, but it didn't matter.
Nothing mattered except that pull, that hunger, that need.
The crystal.
Far ahead, the macro beast remained where it stood, its massive form still, yet aware. Its presence dominated the fractured land, unmoving yet absolute, and its attention had shifted completely. It felt him—not as prey, not as a threat, but as something… unusual.
Its awareness locked onto Nekeili as he tore across the plains, his movements unnatural, his existence distorted by something it recognized faintly. There was something within him that resonated, something incomplete yet familiar, something that did not belong in something so weak.
The demi-god level being observed in silence, its interest growing.
Nekeili didn't slow. His body flickered forward again, another violent displacement, another forced tear through space as he closed the distance at impossible speed.
Closer.
The crystal pulsed faintly. His body responded instantly, faster.
Another activation—
And suddenly—
He stopped.
Not by his own will.
His body jerked violently mid-motion as something seized him completely, halting his momentum as if he had collided with something unseen. His limbs twitched as he hung suspended in the air, his forward motion erased instantly.
The macro beast had moved—not physically, but something unseen had taken hold.
A pressure surrounded him, subtle for only a moment before becoming absolute. It wrapped around his body from all directions, gripping him without touch, without visible form.
Telekinesis.
The demi-god level being lifted him effortlessly, pulling him upward as if he weighed nothing at all. Nekeili's body reacted instinctively, twitching, straining, his muscles attempting to move forward despite being completely restrained.
But he couldn't.
He was held, completely.
The beast drew him closer, slow and deliberate, its immense form looming over him as the scale of its presence became overwhelming. Its aura pressed down on him, vast and suffocating, something far beyond anything he could comprehend.
Yet he didn't react to it, didn't fear it, didn't acknowledge it.
His blood emerald eyes remained locked on one thing, the crystal.
The creature noticed. It observed the way his gaze never shifted, the way his entire being strained—not against the force holding him, but toward the object in its possession. The hunger in him was not hidden. It was absolute.
Greed. Hunger. Gluttony.
It understood those things well, and this one—this small, broken thing embodied them completely.
A low rumble escaped the beast, something deep and resonant as it shifted its hold on him, rotating his body slightly in the air as it examined him. It could feel it more clearly now, the aura surrounding him—faint, incomplete, yet undeniably present.
Something within him mirrored the essence it had just refined, raw, unshaped, but real.
Interesting.
Nekeili's body twitched again as Maddening Spatial Sacrifice attempted to activate instinctively, space around him warping slightly as if trying to fold inward.
It failed, completely suppressed.
The beast's control over the surrounding space crushed the activation instantly, overriding his ability without effort.
Still he tried again, and again—relentless, mindless, driven entirely by that compulsion.
The creature watched, its interest deepening as it maintained its hold, keeping him contained without harming him. It could have ended him instantly, crushed him without effort.
It chose not to.
Instead, it loosened its grip, just slightly enough.
Nekeili's body reacted instantly, space folding as he snapped forward—
Only to be stopped again.
Held inches from the crystal.
His hand twitched, fingers trembling as they stretched toward it, his entire being focused on closing that final distance.
The beast pulled him back, then pushed him forward again closer, then away, again and again.
It played with him, testing him, watching him.
Each time he was given even the smallest freedom, he surged forward without hesitation, his body tearing itself apart just to move that fraction closer. His bones cracked again under the strain, his muscles tore, his body bled but none of it slowed him.
None of it mattered.
He reached, always reaching.
The beast's rumble deepened, something more thoughtful now as it observed the sheer intensity of his fixation, the complete absence of self-preservation. His entire existence had narrowed to a single point—the crystal, the void essence.
It understood now—not fully, but enough.
This was not simple hunger.
This was something deeper, something innate, something that resonated.
The demi-god level being brought him closer once more, this time stopping him just before contact, its telekinetic hold tightening just enough to keep him there as it observed him in silence.
Nekeili's fingers trembled violently, hovering just inches away.
So close.
"...I need it…"
The words slipped from his lips, barely more than a breath, raw and hollow, devoid of anything but that singular desire.
The beast watched, and for the first time, it considered—not killing him, not yet.
Because something like this, something that could react to void essence in this way, was far too interesting to destroy so quickly.
So it held him there, suspended, broken, reaching.
The crystal hovered just beyond his grasp as the hunger inside him continued to grow, deeper and more consuming with every passing second.